Forr today’s challenge, I chose to write to the painting of the Blue Lady. Two reasons, she was from Temple Newsam in Leeds where I went to school, and because her story is a strange and sad one. You can read all the other poetry on Paul Brookes’ blog, and you can read the story of poor Mary Ingram here.

Pearls for a baby

Who would give pearls to a baby,
a string of bad luck,
too much to hold in tiny fists?

And then the highwayman,
at gunpoint
in the lonely dark,

took her pearls
and her mind, they said,
but perhaps

that was not all
he took, she lost,
she searched for,

in the round and round
of madness, the spiral that
could only end in death.

What did he expect?
Giving pearls to a baby
and a lifetime of bad cess.